Quote from: Kyle Aaron;995826AD&D1e, it was like this:

Hireling is someone of 0-level, who has no skills (labourer, lamp-carrier, etc) or one skill (blacksmith, cook, stonemason). There are plenty of these around to hire cheaply, and they don't fight. They can't get XP, and will always be 0-level.

A special kind of hireling is the 0-level man-at-arms. They will typically know how to fight one particular way - an archer, light infantry, heavy infantry, cavalry, etc. You can't turn an archer into a heavy infantry guy. These are more expensive than regular hirelings, and their numbers are limited. They can't get XP, either.

Henchman is a levelled character like a PC, but they'll be lower level than the PC. They are a junior sidekick to the PC, think of Brienne of Tarth swearing service to Catelyn Stark, or Bronn with Tyrion. If they reach or exceed the PC's level, they leave their service. They can get a half-share of XP. These cost a lot to hire and you have to share treasure if you want them to stick around.

Other NPCs are just people, with their own lives and motivations, they don't hang around with PCs.

Yep, pretty much it.

Another point of difference is that expert hirelings like soldiers (not henchmen, can't gain levels) also require sergeants and lieutenants of their own specialty to manage/lead them if you hire sufficient numbers.  These hirelings will have "levels" but aren't capable of gaining further levels.

Some quotes re: hirelings (all 1E AD&D):

(Note standard hirelings are your common laborers, packers, and such)

QuoteLocation Of Standard Hirelings: In general the various occupations represented
here are common to most settlements of village-size and
above, although each and every village will not be likely to furnish each
and every sort of common hireling. Towns and cities will have many
available, and each sort will be found in the appropriate section or
quarter of the city (or town).

QuoteEmployment Of Standard Hirelings: This requires the location of the desired
individual and the offer of work. If the employment is for only a
few days, there will be no real difficulty in locating individuals to take on
the iob. If the offer is for long term employment, only 1 in 6 will be
willing to accept unless a small bonus is offered - a day's wage is too
small, but double or treble that is sufficient to make 3 in 6 willing to take
service.

QuoteEXPERT HIRELINGS

If henchmen are defined as the associates, companions, and loyal (to
some degree) followers of a player character, hirelings are the servitors,
mercenaries, and employees of such player characters, and they too can
have some degree of loyalty - based on their accomodations, rate of
remuneration, and treatment. Various hirelings of menial nature are
assumed to come with the cost of maintaining a stronghold; thus, cooks,
lackeys, stableboys, sweepers, and various servants are no concern of the
player character. Guards and special hirelings are, however, and such
persons must be located and enlisted by the PC or his or her NPC henchmen.

QuoteMonthly Costs: The cast of each type of expert hireling is shown on the
list. This amount is based on all the associated expenditures which go
with the position - salary or wage, uniform or clothing, housing, food,
and sundry equipment used routinely by the hireling. Exception: The cost
does not include arms and armor of soldiers, and these items must be furnished
to mercenaries over and above other costs. Certain other hirelings
incur costs over and above the normal also, when they engage in their
occupations. These are indicated on the table by an asterisk (*).

QuoteMercenary Soldier: The likelihood of encountering any given type of
mercenary is strictly up to you as DM. A table below shows suggested
probabilities, as well as typical numbers. Types will seldom be mixed. If
more than 5 ore encountered, 1 will be a serjeant (a leader-type, or
equivalent of a non-commissioned officer). It is urged that 1 serjeant for
every 10 troops be used as a minimum figure with regard to regular
soldiers and leader types. (Captains will have to be hired for each sort of
troop type.) Note that regular soldiers are 0 level men-at-arms with 4-7 hit
points each
...
(tables)
...
* With lieutenont if more than 10 soldiers.
*'With lieutenant if more than 10 soldiers, with captain if more than 20
soldiers.

QuoteNon-Human Soldiers:
There can be various units of non-human troops available for mercenary
duty, but this depends upon your milieu. It is suggested that as a general
rule such troops be enlisted only where they actually dwell, and only if
the player character champions their cause or is a minion of their alignment,
religion, or the like, or is a racial hero. The types of soldiers available
depends entirely on the race (see MONSTER MANUAL for such information).
The less intelligent non-humans will serve for from 10% to 60%
less cost, but these evil creatures will certainly expect to loot, pillage, and
rape freely at every chance, and kill (and probably eat) captives. Dwarves
will serve at double rates, or at normal rates if they are basically aiding a
champion of their cause and people. Gnomes and halflings will only serve
in the latter case. Elves are a difficult case to handle, for they might serve
against hated foes, or for a cause, but in either event probably for greater
cost or special considerations only. Half humans such as half-elves and
half-orcs might be found amongst either human contingents or with those
of their non-human parent race. Possible non-human soldiers are:

bugbears
dwarves
elves
gnolls
gnomes
goblins
halflings
hobgoblins
kobolds
lizard men
orcs

QuoteDaily Employment: Expert hirelings are generally not available for
periods of less than one or more months. Soldiers can be hired, but not
captains, lieutenants, or serjeants. They recognize hazardous duty, and
the cost per day is the same as per month. The supply of such men-at-arms
willing to work day-to-day is strictly limited, so if the PCs lose them
adventuring, more will not be likely to be found.

Henchmen serve you because they like and respect you.

Hirelings serve you because you pay them to.

NPC Party Members are characters in their own right, played by the DM, who have their own agendas and may or may not serve you at all.

In both of the GoT examples you give, a much more capable combatant is being hired by a less capable one. Tyrion may be, in some sense, a higher-level character than Bronn but Catelyn Stark is not a higher-level character than Brienne. Of course, this makes sense. If you have the money to hire the best, you don't worry that he or she might be better than you are. Not that you're wrong about the main issue but it's odd.

Tyrion and Catelyn are lords. That makes them at least 9th level in AD&D1e. If Bronn and Brienne were 9th or more, they wouldn't be swearing allegiance, they'd be establishing their own stronghold, and clearing the surrounding hexes of monsters.

Now, you may argue that AD&D1e does not model reality. But we are not talking about that, we are talking about what AD&D1e does, and those are fair examples to help understand it.

"There's no cure for being a cunt."

They are Lords because they were born into the right family. No one I know, and I played a _lot_ of old D&D and AD&D1, ever paid attention to the idea that puissance in combat conferred rank in society or even  in the military. Ignoring that idea was so easy that no one ever argued that we shouldn't.

Sadly, "hit name level and build a stronghold" was the first part of the game to be lost.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;995972Sadly, "hit name level and build a stronghold" was the first part of the game to be lost.

For good reason, once the game moved away from it's purely Wargamer roots.  It didn't mesh with a lot of assumptions players of the 'new generation', like myself I freely admit, knew about how even a fake medieval society would/should operate.

Things change.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;995793Was it possible to get tougher than average hirelings?

Others have answered the technical answers. But let me address a general principle (about general principles). As much as TSR-era D&D loves its' charts, once it enters the real world, it isn't that much about exhaustive lists. The game gives examples to show general principles, and expects the DM to extrapolate from there. So, the PCs need to hire extra durable wagon drivers to lead their wagons through the Hills of Random Explosive Acid Vipers? Fine. The DM can work something out. It's not like 3e (and later? Not sure about 4e and 5e off the top of my head) where you can tell how many 5th level experts there are in a city based on population size.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;995732Off Topic:  Am I the ONLY one who's tired of that shit?

You're the only one who still gets bent out of shape by it, or him in general for that matter. The peehole tonguing one, the shit-unassisted one, and the recent 'corn in it' obsession are all prurient sexual/scatological jokes no one more mature than a spazzy 14 year old would be impressed with, so it's obviously for his own amusement (and as he says, even he's gotten bored with it). So why should anyone care?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;995972Sadly, "hit name level and build a stronghold" was the first part of the game to be lost.

Sadly? What fun was it to have rules that contradict how every large human society has worked? And, yes, I know how every large human society has worked. I'm old.

What was so bad about them?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;996059What was so bad about them?

Well, for the day, nothing; if one wanted to tend towards something more representative of feudal societies, one played Chivalry and Sorcery.  To reply to one part of original poster's comments, though, one usually negotiated with henchmen as has been described above, but one could sometimes acquire one through role play--if the higher level PC rescued the lower level goombah (but leveled goombah nevertheless) one could sometimes parlay that into a henchman relationship.  There are lots of different ways to spin this and so you as the game master needn't feel constrained/

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;996059What was so bad about them?

Nothing.  They were very sketchy, but since we were all Castle & Crusade Society members anyway, we'd done plenty of reading outside the rules.

I never bought or played Chivalry and Sorcery because I had all the translated sources that they'd cribbed from and didn't cite.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;996046Sadly? What fun was it to have rules that contradict how every large human society has worked? And, yes, I know how every large human society has worked. I'm old.

You might have missed this in your extensive studies, but no human society actually had orcs, elves, or people casting fireballs. That was the stuff of myth. That's why I referred to Tyrion and Bronn, and not to, say, Edward IV and Richard Neville. AD&D1e is about myth. Hirelings and henchmen are part of this.

I was answering how henchmen and hirelings work in our game of myth. I was not answering questions of anthropology and human history. I realise that actually answering the question of the original poster, and discussing the topic they're interested in discussing, is a radical departure from the norms of online discourse. But what can I say, I'm just a wild-eyed radical.

I've always thought of hirelings mainly as 1HD guards and similar. We havent ever hired cooks or porters to similar in our games, most of that encumbrance/carrying loot is handwaived. Henchmen though are different, like others have said, they are kind of lower level sidekicks that the player mostly controls (subject to GM veto, morale checks etc and if a PC dies the player can play the henchmen instead). You often still pay them, but some follow you for a more personal reason (they owe you a life debt, want combat experience, apprentice, religious devotee, squire, etc). NPCs in the party are generally one offs and leave after the current adventure.

And, of course, since we were NOT "one band of heroes tried and true riveted together at the hip" and never knew who was showing up for the night, having henchmen meant that you could play with a wider variety of other characters, and it also gave you a chance to try out different character classes.

And when you played a henchman as your PC, the henchman got full XP.